Tune never disappoints with a collection of weight-weenie certified goods, and this year there was a big focus on wheels. Some are using their own rims, and some with ENVE and Spank rims.

Founder Uli Fahl said they spent a lot of time and money this year investing in their own carbon fiber manufacturing facility. He wanted to be independent from other suppliers to have control over the quality and cost, and a big part of what they’re aiming toward is producing their own rims. “It’s my aim to be the best in the lightweight category,” Fahl said.

Looking forward, he hinted that their new product introductions run in cycles, and we should note that there aren’t any new hubs shown this year. Take that to mean we should expect some innovation there next year. It’ll be really interesting to see if that figures in with the new carbon plant.

Anywhoo, those 650B clincher mountain bike wheels you’re looking at above weigh in at just 1060g for the pair…

That light weight comes partly from the 243.5g rims that look plenty wide (they’re really shallow, though). Eventually they’ll run these with their own rims (these are made for them) in 650B and 29er…but probably not 26″ wheels with the lightweight carbon rims. Even Tune sees this as a diminishing market.

For the more aggressive rider, there’s the Spank rimmed wheelset using Tune’s King and Kong hubs laced together with Sapim spokes. Tune’s hubs are available in a wide variety of colors, as are the rims and spoke nipples, so you can make it as pretty, stealth or gaudy as you like.

The 26″ wheelset comes in at 1,251g. Compare that to over 1,900g for the stock Spank Spike 28 Race wheelset with the same rims and you see why we love Tune. This weight’s likely with standard QR, but their hubs are available with various thru axle options, including Maxle and Syntace X12.

Tune claims their Skyline road wheels are the lightest out. They use their first in-house made carbon rims. They have special ground glass spheres in the brake track molded in during production. These rims come out of the mold looking like this, there’s no finishing. It takes a couple rides to “break in” the brake surface and wear down the glossy finish, then the glass particles add a lot of friction between it and the brake pad for solid braking. Because its worked into the resin and fibers, it won’t wear off. It requires harder braking pads and it’s a patent pending feature.

This one is 25mm deep and comes in at just 844g for the pair. 844 GRAMS! They’ll come out with deeper rims and are working on a clincher version, too.

This was funny to me: ENVE wheelsets are offered because they haven’t gotten their own road carbon clinchers where they want them…and I quote: “(ENVE’s rims) are very good, no problems with them, but they are heavy.”

Lest you think everything’s carbon rimmed in the Black Forest, there’s the TSR30 alloy aero rims. They’re meant as a “budget” offering or for those that aren’t willing to put carbon rims into a crit race.

At the top are Tune’s new Riser Handlebars that’ll come in 680mm and 800mm widths. Weight is as low as 130g. If that’s not light enough for you, they still offer the Schmolke flat bar (bottom) at just 95g.

Two new thru axles join the line: The DC X-12 thru axle for Syntace X-12 systems at right will have adapters available it to work with other 12×142 systems, too, including Specialized’s and other bike brands. On the left is the carbon fiber shafted version of their lightweight 15mm thru axle front introduced last year.

At risk of stealing some of the thunder from our upcoming post dedicated to Brake Force One’s tech and updated system, Tune offers their own version called Kill Hill. They machine the calipers down a bit and offer it in a wider variety of anodized colors. They’ll also offer the new glow-in-the-dark brake hoses and other things we’ll save for later. We don’t want no heads ‘splodin’.

Matchmaker compatible mounts are offered, as are their own brake pads that have a Tune-specific compound.

Last but not least, purple ano is still an option on most of their goods…and you can get matching purple graphics on the alloy rims mentioned above.

woah those are some light bars, wide too. Usually the lighter the bar, the more narrow the juice(?)

Max - 09/04/12 - 7:01pm

Tune… high prices combined with extremly low quality.

Hubs: Lasting 200km before freehub body was broken and rusty bearings appeared. sharp edges from machining were visible (even cheap novatec hubs don’t have such a bad finish!), epoxy from carbon reinforcement were on the whole hub body
Komfort saddle: couldn’t reach the trail with 70kg before gear was broken
tune/BFO Brake: nearly killed myself with this ******, leaking oil, no power and (of course) ugly finish like a toothbrush
tune bottle cage skyline: broke the cage by trying to get the bottle out

So I payed a huge amount of my money for such a low quality stuff… I won’t repeat this mistake!

So Tune is going to produce more carbon gear in house and even rims? Hell no!

Joey - 09/04/12 - 7:43pm

@max. Sometimes you should play the game, sometimes up shouldn’t.you should’ve learned after the second break. Maybe you should stop training with your wallet, take better care of your bike parts, or buy stouter components.

Gillis - 09/04/12 - 8:13pm

so what’s with the gearbox/bb on the orange bike behind the Nicolai?

Marc - 09/04/12 - 8:20pm

Sign me up for a set of glow in the dark cables. That way my bike can look like something from TRON. Seriously.

marc

Warp - 09/05/12 - 2:11am

Gillis… that looks like a Pinion gearbox. Good catch!

Gilhooley - 09/05/12 - 2:41am

@Max:

So, you shelled 2000+ dollars for parts in one go or did you just continue to buy those “crappy” parts on and on after first failure ? Highly doubt Tune would be on the market since 1989 if their components are that bad as you claim.

I smell a troll here…

mat - 09/05/12 - 5:21am

i’ve had my Tune Schwarzbrenners for two years now and have thrown the worst of the british weather and roads at them. They’re still spot on.

as with the seat clamp, skewers, stem and anything else that i’m running.

Max - 09/05/12 - 5:57am

Hey guys,

I bought a lot of parts to build a very good looking and very light bike. So I ordered a lot of “Tune, made in germany” parts which are claimed to be “high quality”. After getting the parts I was disappointed about the finish of the Hubs. It was lower class with mentioned sharp edges from machining and epoxy on the Hub body. Anyway it was good weather outside so I wanted to complete the bike.
After I finished with the building process I was going to ride the bike and after the third ride the half of the tune stuff was broken like I wrote it above.
So I wasn’t going to buy the parts, i bought them at once!

And taking better care of my bike. After three Rides and 200km I achieved this. I don’t know how you Joey maintain your bike, but i buy stuff to use it one year and service it in the winter. Looking for the bearings is nothing I want to do after EVERY ride. Even my Shimano Deore or Novatec Hubs don’t need shorter service intervalls than once a year… The Shimano XTR 970 Hubs (much cheaper) nearly need no service at all…

And well, after destroying my parts I called my dealer (before i don’t called him, I just ordered because of the claimed “Tune Quality”) and he nearly sad: “Well, it’s Tune Quality with nice colours, nice weight, but if you want to ride your bike like a mountain bike (hardtail) should be, you definitly have to buy other brands”
After all the dealer changed mostly all parts (thanks!), the last remaining tune product is the Speedneedle saddle, which is only tune labeled and produced by a Guy named Mikus (see link at the end). This saddle is amazing. No sharp edges, smooth surfaces, creases free lether. It’s real quality which the label “Made in Germany” should stand for!

At the end: I’m selling high price luxury articles myself (this is where the money come from 😉 ). There are a lot of brands which claim “high quality” but are bad handcrafted rubbish. After many Jobs at the textile and metall industry i won’t buy the most articles I sell*. But outside there are so many people with a lot of money and not even a hint of knowledge or quality awareness. They just know which brands they have to have to beeing cool

*Well, I see my business lags of morality, but I tried a lot of years to sell things which I claim high quality (in bike parts this would by Chris King, Shimano XTR, …) and my business runs very bad. After all I had to decide to close my Shop or to expand with expansive rubbish brands. And now I’m selling very high price, low quality audio / electronic stuff with big labels on it. And well my customers are coming back, they are happy with it…

Nick - 09/05/12 - 6:57am

I was very unimpressed with my Kong Superscharf hub which fell apart twice in a year and wasn’t user serviceable (I realise they now are, but once bitten…). Friends have also had a stem and some bar ends crack and a seatpost snap. Considering none of it was vastly light to start with…

Their skewers are great, but I’m not sure I’d rush to use most of their parts again!

gatouille - 09/05/12 - 7:24am

@Max
I’m agree with you. Some products of Tune are of bad quality for high price. Hub are bad quality : fade color, bad anodizing, mechanism which break, …. bur very lightweight. Not for MTB ! And other products are good quality. Customers make their own choice !

If nobody else will comment on it, I will. That Nicolai Argon Road is fugly, yet beautiful in a way that only they seem to be able to bring to market. Every design meeting for a new frame must start in a room that looks like a cross between a modern art gallery and a set from a Mad Max film. It’s a bike show in 2012 and that’s an aluminum road bike with non-sanded welds, sliding dropouts and square stays, how great is that?

Caliente - 09/05/12 - 4:08pm

@Max TL;DR

Max - 09/05/12 - 5:44pm

Hi Caliente,

I’m a little bit old fashioned and can’t understand your four letters.

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